Last round results for IC14

Ben Collins writes exclusively for AFL Asia tracking the progress of the Asian 5 at the IC14.

Below Ben reports on the final round for all teams on Friday, 22 August 2014 – except for the Grand Finalists who will play tomorrow..

The last round of matches for the International Cup took place on Friday on a sunny day at Royal Park ahead of the grand final on Saturday at the MCG.

Division one and division two honours were on the line with Pakistan being the only member of the Asian five to make it to division one.

The Pakistani’s came up against a French side that has improved throughout the International Cup and they looked tired in the final game of their debut tournament, losing comfortably.

Pakistan: 1.2 1.2 1.2 22 (14)
France: 2.2 7.4 10.8 13.10 (88)

In the division two games, the two bottom-ranked teams India and Indonesia battled it out to avoid last place in another all-Asian encounter and Indonesia got a breakthrough win.

The Indonesians ran away with the match after they got their tails up with a few early goals and earned their first win in International competition.

India: 1.1 1.1 1.2 1.2 (8)
Indonesia: 2.0 2.4 7.6 9.6 (60)

Japan backed up their win against China with another comfortable win against Finland. The Japanese were unlucky not to win the division two title, missing out by a whisker to Sweden. Still, the Samurais finished off their tournament on a positive note with a big win.

Japan: 4.7 6.11 8.17 12 19 (91)
Finland: 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 (6)

China came up against a Swedish side determined to claim the division two title and it showed with China being well beaten all over the ground and struggling to match it physically with the bigger Swede’s.

Sweden: 2.4 6.8 8.9 10.14 (74)
China: 1.0 2.0 3.2 4.2 (26)

Whilst it was disappointing for Japan to miss out on the division two title by the narrowest of margins, it was still a great tournament for the Asian five and a great display of the improvement in the quality of footy in Asia.

The final rankings for the Asian five had Pakistan leading the way (12th), followed by Japan (14th), China (16th), Indonesia (17th) and India (18th).